Happiness is a ....

You may wonder - but you probably don't - how the photos are selected for these letters. It's easy.  As many as possible. And this time, there are so many that I'm tempted not to write anything at all. Except, that there's so much to include. And every picture tells a story.

For example, the picture of Simon at school jumps out when you look at his shirt and fill in the blanks of how it got so dirty. Or, the picture of Kiernan and Sean tells the story of a visit to the doctor, but neither of them look sick. Or, how about Joe and Thomas at the baseball game, where Thomas would have outlasted all of us, even though he had had a full day at school. What about Claire with friends (teachers?) soaking in the joy of a convertible. What's that backstory?

But there are others I couldn't squeeze in. Let's start with the birthdays. Happy birthdays to Paula and Tina, and looking ahead to Johanna and Auden. That's a lot of photos of blowing out candles. Or singing, as Donald and Everett show us.

All these pictures remind me of a friend who recently sent me a George Bernard Shaw quote – "A happy family is but an earlier Heaven." Or of a holocaust survivor's quote, "Happiness is a choice."

That last quote came from a play we went to this week called The Happiest Man Alive, which recounts the true and obviously harrowing story of Eddie Jaku, and there's a book and a TED talk to go with it.

The other quote comes from a friend who read through the book Have a Great Week, Love! Pre-publication activities are proceeding, and we are looking at a November date.

Happiness, for us, was a couple of visits to Washington, with a delayed rain date tickets for a baseball game. We wanted to invite Jeff and Melodie but they were getting over illnesses.  We watched Simon one night while his parents went to a wedding, and we had a marathon swimming pool outing.

Hearing Andrew and Lur recount their trip up to Kohler Wisconsin sounds like happiness too. They all went to a concert by a group we should have heard of before, called Guster. They also squeezed in a field hockey game with a Lawrenceville friend.

And happiness in Jersey is Janet back at the theater doing audio description.

Not so happy was our furnace situation. With temps going down into the 40s and 50s, the house was chilly when we got back from DC. What was supposed to be a quick visit by the plumber to turn on the pilot light turned out to be a major fix to the fan, along with a major bill. I have a picture of the broken part, but it's not so happy, except that we now have heat again. And, it gave us an excuse to get a free consult from Johnny, who filled us in on the next steps for his heart valve procedure.

Back in DC, Joe and Leonor have found more permanent quarters which they hope to move into soon. It's not far from where they currently are, and still walkable to school. It's near Sherman Circle which seems to be a busy place for families. We'll head back down there next weekend to see if we can help out with the move or with daycare during the move.  Is there such a thing as move-care??

We also had a consult with Annie about trip plans and what we'll do before and after the ceremonies. She and Sankhar have both been sick, but they still managed to squeeze in outfit preparations – one line from her latest chronicle stuck out for me: "for our wedding, we'll spend 25 times more on the bride outfit compared to the groom (and this does not include makeup, etc.). I'm starting to understand why the wedding industry is the fourth largest industry in India."

And with that thought hanging, we'll close this letter out with a final happiness wish for you.

Love from up here.